Scouting today in south Georgia along the GA/FL border resulted in a positive find. This was a protected location in Grady county that appears to have survived cold temperatures. Scouting efforts are underway in all states of the deep South and in Texas. Please consult the appropriate state commentary for more information about each state's find(s).

Positive finds in 2006 by state: Alabama has one positive county, Georgia has one, and Florida has ten.
In 2005, Caldwell, KY was the farthest north and Hyde county, NC was the farthest east location where soybean rust was found. Liberty County in Texas was the farthest west that rust had been found. A total of 138 counties had soybean rust in 2005.

February 8, 2006

A ProMED-mail post
ProMED-mail is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases
From: ProMED-mail<promed@promedmail.org>

Soybean rust found in kudzu patch in southern Georgia

The Asian strain of soybean rust (ASR) was found yesterday [3 Feb 2005] on old kudzu leaves that appear to have survived cold temperatures in southern Georgia. Grady County becomes the 1st county in Georgia to have rust in 2006 and brings the U.S. total to a dozen counties in 3 states this year [2006].

Layla Sconyers, with the Department of Plant pathology of the University of Georgia, reported on Sbrusa.net [see below] that the infected patch of kudzu was found behind a building in downtown Cairo, Georgia, near the Georgia/Florida border. ASR was found on what appeared to be older leaves that had survived the cold temperatures, thanks to protection from the building.

Scrooners said that copious amounts of rust pustules and spores were observed by light microscopy at the University of Georgia Coastal Plain Experiment Station.

The patch was one of 7 kudzu locations scouted on 30 Jan 2006 in Seminole, Grady and Thomas counties. Of the 7, 5 of them had a small percentage of greening and leaf-sprouting occurring. No ASR was found other than in the Cairo patch.

The other ASR soybean rust locations found in 2006 were in Montgomery County in south-central Alabama on 12 Jan 2006 and in 10 Florida counties that were found on 11-13 Jan 2006 and confirmed on 17 and 20 Jan 2006.

By contrast, no ASR was found in the United States in 2005 until 24 Feb 2005 in Pasco County, Florida, and the 2nd find didn't come until nearly a month later -- 21 Mar 2005 in Hernando County, Florida.

Source: Georgia state commentary and archived data on <http://www.sbrusa.net>.

[Byline: Marilyn Cummins, Editor]